After Sunset
by Lavedovanera
Summary: “Because you can never take a picture of these things and have the representation do the original any justice. In the end, that’s how it’s supposed to be. If you could capture something like that in photograph, nobody would look at the actual sunset” Dhr


Credit any sensibility of this story to my two betas; one over at Perfect Imagination, Elyaeru and jadestrickover at Livejournal

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, or the quotes used in this fic.

--

**After Sunset**

- - -

_Good_ _kids are like sunsets. We take them for granted. Every evening they disappear. Most parents never imagine how hard they try to please us, and how miserable they feel when they think they have failed._

_-Emma Brombeck_

- - -

On a bus, four-year-old Hermione Granger sat with her mother and father quietly on their way to her grandmother's house. Her mother was brushing lint off her father's jacket while her father was telling a story that Hermione really didn't care to listen to: something about dentists.

Her mother _always _listened to her father's long-winded stories and pretended like she cared, no matter _how_ stupid they were (and, in Hermione's opinion, they were all stupid).

Hermione rolled her eyes at her mother's severe figure and looked down at her feet.

Hermione happened to be so short that she could swing her feet while on the bus seat. She had always liked swinging her feet. It made her feel innocent, or at least that's what she thought she should have felt. She had read a great many stories in a great amount of books that described children as innocent and skipping and such things. So naturally, she should do the same.

Hermione then snapped back to the present. She did that all of the time; she just went off and started thinking about things that happened a long time ago. Once, in Miss Devin's nursery class, Miss D. started teaching them how to spell 'elephant.' Hermione, having already known how to spell 'elephant,' started thinking about how her purple elephant, Wilfred, must feel being all stuffed up with foam. For Wilfred, you see, had been ripped apart by the dog the previous week. And now Hermione had to wonder what in the world Wilfred must have felt like. First for having foam on the insides instead of blood and then having the stuffing pulled out of him!

...And then Hermione realized she had been thinking of Wilfred as a person when he probably couldn't feel his guts being ripped out in the first place!

Hermione snapped back to the present again! How did she get the memories of poor dismembered Wilfred out of a bus ride?

Hermione shook her thoughts away, calling herself silly, and looked over to her parents. Her mother was staring straight forward, with no expression on her face, her hazy brown eyes completely blank. Hermione's eyes, however, were not blank. They were bright with amusement, because she had noticed her mother's hair.

Her mother, Hermione concluded, didn't know about friction, because Jane Granger had rubbed her head up and down, nodding at what Mr. Granger had said so much that it had created static and caused her hair to stick to the window. Hermione giggled slightly at first, but then stopped abruptly with a rather dark look scrunched on her little freckled face. Daddy _never _listened to Mum. But when Daddy talked, Mum's eyes went wide and she nodded over and over. Hermione always expected her mother's tongue to hang out. Mrs. Granger always reminded Hermione of a dog when she did such things.

Her father had since completed his story and was now looking through his date book. Hermione then looked back to her mother. Mrs. Granger still had a completely blank face.

It always bugged Hermione when her mother had a blank face. It felt like she was thinking something important, and Hermione always wanted to know. Like now, for instance.

"What are you thinking?"

Her mother stared forward a few moments, completely lost. Hermione repeated her question, "What are you thinking!" except Hermione said it a little louder this time. Her mum always did this to her: acted like she wasn't there at all.

Finally, Mrs. Granger broke out of her reverie and looked at Hermione for a few seconds. She rolled her eyes. Would Hermione _never _stop asking her what she was thinking? And then Jane replied to her daughter's wide, interested eyes.

"Nothing."

Her mother _always _said she was thinking of nothing, and Hermione _always_ kept asking what she was thinking. But deep down, she just wanted someone to ask _her_ what _she_ was thinking, but no one ever did. It was horribly sad, really, to know with certainty that nobody wondered or cared about what you were thinking. Her opinion didn't matter to her mother much. Mr. Granger's opinion mattered more to Jane Granger than her own did, let alone her daughter's. But Hermione was confident that one day someone would ask, with a real intent on finding out what she was thinking, and she would gleefully oblige.

Hermione was reminded of her mother. Jane wasn't always thinking of nothing. Sometimes when Hermione asked her, Mrs. Granger said that she was thinking about bills or work. But when she said nothing? How in the _world _could one not be thinking of something? Hermione was _always _thinking of something; her mind ran non-stop. And she imagined it would for the rest of her life. When she shared this with her mother, Jane laughed.

"Oh, it's just because you're young." Then Mrs. Granger smiled condescendingly. "You'll grow out of it when you're older, dear."

She didn't.

- - -

_The dust of exploded beliefs may make a fine sunset._

_-Geoffrey Madan_

- - -

Hermione was nineteen-years-old…well…almost.

They would face Voldemort tomorrow. Would they win? No, she wouldn't ask herself that. Harry was probably contemplating his life…somewhere in this accursed house called Grimmauld Place. Tense could hardly describe what he must be feeling. Whereas Ron was at the Burrow. Hermione and Harry had refused his entreaties to accompany him to the broken down house, feeling that they would be intruding on what could 'possibly be the last Weasley dinner ever,' as Ron had so eloquently put it.

_Why_ did Ron have to be _stupid_ enough to say that? As if Harry wasn't already nervous and edgy enough in the first place. What with the whole wizarding world on his back, Ron mentioning a potential last Weasley get-together must be the cherry on the crap-cake.

Cake. Cake sounded _so very _good at the moment. Today was a day for cake. Not that they would likely be celebrating either their own or their enemies impending demise, but that tomorrow, September 19th, was Hermione Granger's birthday.

Hermione didn't know why, but it had always bugged her, her birthday. Everything seemed to go wrong on her birthday. The fact that she was fighting in a battle tomorrow really didn't help. Why, you may ask. Well, it's simple. The fact that she _might _die tomorrow ruined her birthday. And the fact that she always had bad luck on her birthday gave her to believe that something unfortunate for the Order might happen during the battle.

Now don't mistake things. Hermione Granger was by no means a superstitious person, but she was also one of the sharpest and brightest knives in the drawer, and being so very clever, she was very easily able to put together all of the horrid things that had happened on her birthday together and come up with a solution: bad luck.

But we clever people know the truth, for sure! On her birthday, Hermione Granger was always _expecting _bad luck.

Every birthday Hermione Granger ever had, that she could recall, she went through the whole day subconsciously collecting all the bad things that had happened to her during said day and called them bad luck.

"What are you _doing_, Granger?"

Hermione was then pulled from her unhappy thoughts to realize that she was staring at the kettle as if it were an extremely interesting scientific specimen. She was not embarrassed however; she could have been doing a lot more awkward things.

"Thinking, Malfoy. You do know what that is right?" Then she smiled sweetly and continued. "Maybe I'll teach you how to go about doing it someday."

This reply to a simple question would have burned any normal man's face off, but Draco Malfoy was just about as much of a _normal_ man as Hermione Granger was a normal woman. In fact, they were both exceptionally incomparable to normal humans in their knowledge, oddities, and ways, which were more similar than either knew.

Though they argued often, Draco knew something was bothering Hermione that had nothing to do with his asking a question, just like at the moment, Hermione could tell something was troubling Draco that had nothing to do with her scorching answer. Don't blame them, of course, for the fact that they were so perceptive of the other's feelings. They just argued and tried to hurt the other _so _much that when they were in conflict. They began to watch and memorize the other's facial features for signs of hurt so they would be able to tell when they had bested the other in an argument.

Draco Malfoy looked straight in her eyes. It was a moment before Hermione realized what he was doing with his penetrating look. He had been searching her mind with his exceptional powers of Legilimency, and she had looked away just a little too late.

"Happy birthday tomorrow, Granger."

She could tell he really didn't give a damn about her birthday. He just wanted to shove it under her nose that he had gotten the better of her.

"So," he smirked as he ascended into a creaky old black chair. "Hurry and make yourself a birthday bun. Don't you think that's fairly sad, Granger? That nobody cares about you enough to remember your birthday?"

Her mouth fell open, grasping at straws for a smart reply. None came.

He smirked at her again, obviously loving the fact that he rendered her speechless.

_Great, I get to spend the day before I die with Draco sodding Malfoy. I think I'm starting to feel claustrophobic._

She was feeling claustrophobic. As a way to cut off conversation with Malfoy and also to cure her head, she droned over to the window, hoping that the view and the air might be worth the exertion it had taken her to trudge the seven steps to the window.

She threw open the shutters, sending dust and spiders spiraling in every direction. Feasting her eyes on the sunset like it was the last thing she would ever see, her claustrophobia was wiped from her mind. Wiped from her mind just like the day was about to be wiped from the skies. She loved it when she saw sunsets, and she loved it even more when clouds were in the sky to turn light plum and compliment the pink of the twilight and the indigo of the dying heavens.

But nightfall made her just as heartbroken as they made her blissful. She was always filled with joy that she had caught this little rain drop of heaven in the sunset, but so soon to be closely followed by extreme depression_. This _would never happen again. It made her sad to know that she would share the sunset alone -- would share many a sunset alone -- while all of her friends were caught up in their own lives too busy to see it. It was also sad that she should never see _this_ particular sunset ever again.

Then Hermione felt sadness descend in even greater waves as she watched the sunset fade away into grey. When sunsets faded it always reminded her of burnt paper. You could still see the white of the paper, but forever gone are the edges that are burnt off.

"What are you thinking, Granger?"

"I'm just-"

_Wait…what?! _

How could this happen. Of all the people on the earth that could ask her what she was thinking…it was him. _WHY! _After all the years she had waited of nobody being interested...Draco bloody Malfoy is the person that cared about what she was thinking.

The irony was not lost on her.

"I wish I could just…" she said, shaking off her disappointed and yet happy thoughts. "Could just…take a picture and have my own personal sunset around."

"I don't."

"Why?" she asked, suddenly vicious, trying to get back on familiar grounds. "Is it because I said _I_ would like to do so?"

"No, Granger," he said sounding tired. "Because you can never take a picture of these things and have the representation do the original any justice. And in the end, that's how it's supposed to be. If you could capture something like a sunset in a painting, or a poem, or a photograph, nobody would look at the actual sunset."

Hermione almost fell over because, come on, it wasn't often she caught Draco Malfoy waxing poetic.

And then she understood what he was saying: if she filmed this moment or took a picture of it and then showed it to Harry and Ron, said moment wouldn't be half as strange and uncharacteristic as personally hearing Malfoy talk about artistic sunsets like a connoisseur.

"As to your former statement, there is no contestation, Granger," he said. "The sunset _is_ beautiful, but I like sunrise more."

Hermione wanted to roll her eyes, but held back. He was, of course, only saying he liked sunrises more just to disagree with Hermione. She was sure he had some unnatural need to play the devils-advocate.

Guessing her thoughts, Draco's face became angry.

"I _do _like sunrises more, Granger," he said nastily. "Why do you always have to think that _any_ opinion I have has _anything _to do with _you._"

He inwardly jumped in exaltation. He had bested her and he was sure this time. But no, he could see her beginning to open her mouth in further argument. Draco had argued with this woman many times. He knew her style. It's not that she _wouldn't _shut up. It's that she _couldn't _shut up. It was almost like she had taken an Unbreakable Vow to _never _let him get the last word in.

And that was why he liked arguing with her because she never _walked away_. And nothing pissed him off more than people walking away from him. He truly felt that when you were in an argument, walking away was losing the argument. What infuriated him was that the person who had walked away thought they had won the argument, and Draco didn't lose arguments. So he couldn't stand when people convinced themselves that they had won when they _hadn't_!

"It has to do with me, _Malfoy,_" said Hermione, pronouncing his name as if it were a disgusting swear word and extra-offensive. "Because you _always_ disagree with what I say, and then _argue_ with me further!"

Hermione may have sounded angry during this but she wasn't. Hermione Granger could probably spit out retaliations in an argument and win if she were deaf. She wasn't jumping for joy either--talking to Malfoy rarely made people do that--but she was happy for the distraction from her thoughts of her birthday and, more importantly, the battle.

"Oh yes!" said Draco, faking a look and manner that suggested he had just had an epiphany. "Upon hearing you like sunsets, I will insist I like a sunrise more, just for the argument. Get a brain, Granger! Who in the world can argue about a sunset? What! Do you expect me to compare and contrast? Just because you have that kind of time on your hands to do so doesn't mean we all do. _I _have a life."

Hermione laughed viscously, knowing what she was about to say would hurt, but unable to stop herself. "Malfoy, _I'm _the one with the life, remember? _You're_ the one with the time on your hands. You being the one stuck in this house washing dishes, or whatever you do while we're fighting."

Draco's smirk slipped off his face faster than water slips of rock whilst a pained look replaced it. Hermione then felt the guilt rocket through her system as she suddenly remembered Sirius stuck in this house and how he would have taken to that little speech of hers. Draco had been stuck here in hiding just like Sirius, except not only was Draco hiding from the Ministry, but from Voldemort also, who was determined to end his life for abandoning him to go to the Americas.

Draco hadn't really gone to the Americas, of course. He had gathered up the various blueprints and passwords of his dark master's stronghold, betrayed his headquarters, which led to the battle tomorrow. The Order and Ministry Aurors would storm Voldemort's stronghold on the morrow, entering through secret passageways and hopefully leaving through the front portcullis.

And the only one who ever seemed to pity him was Lupin, who kept on speaking of how Sirius had felt, and how presently Draco was in the same situation. Hermione hadn't believed it at first, but now, seeing the look on his face, she began to take Lupin's words and regret her own, very severely indeed.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't know why I said that."

He looked up from his guilty contemplation with anger and stepped closer to the far guiltier girl in front of him.

"I really never thought you could say anything that cruel, even to me."

He said it almost like he was grudgingly proud of her. She decided to play along.

"What I can say?" she said with a false, cheeky manner. "You taught me well."

Her teasing did not work. He still looked like an omniscient rain cloud. Hermione soon felt the mood change. Instead of Draco towering over her like he was a livid father, he suddenly turned into…well…a young brooding man who found out he had a pretty young woman cornered up against a window with a pretty sunset silhouetting her crazy hair. In other words, Draco Malfoy was staring into Hermione's eyes and she found herself unable to look away.

As Draco looked down on Hermione, he felt his life pass through his eyes, realizing that said life might cease to exist tomorrow. He realized, with the exception of single handedly whipping everybody's arse in the intelligence section, Granger had done about as much in her life as he had and he had done nothing. He was so young;. There were so many things he had not done yet. He hadn't been to Paris;. He hadn't jumped out of one of those metal Muggle birds. He hadn't beat Potter at Quidditch. He had never been completely silent for a whole day. He had never been taught how to make peanut butter cookies. And last, but certainly not least, he had never told Hermione Granger that he was unequivocally and ardently in love with her.

But he had passed all those things by, saying that he would do them _someday_. He would jump _someday_ after the war was over. He would challenge Potter to a Quidditch game _someday_. And he would tell the most insufferable woman he had ever known that he harbored a strong attachment to her…_someday._

_Sometime is a lot of empty tomorrows, Draco. _

Huh. Dumbledore had said that. Draco wished he had listened to the old fart at the time…because maybe he wouldn't regret so much of his former life now in his latter one. And there was only one thing of all the things he hadn't done that he could do before he _might_ die. He couldn't go to Paris. He didn't own a helicopter. Potter was sulking somewhere, far too depressed to play Quidditch. He also didn't have the right ingredients for cookies.

And so Draco Malfoy took the very confused Hermione by the arms and led her into her bedroom.

And this is where we leave them. Or where I leave you. For Grimmauld Place left very little privacy, and so I will give the two just that: privacy. The rest of the night, I will put down to _your_ imagination.

- - -

_A sunset doesn't last all evening:  
A cloudburst doesn't last all day,  
Seems my love is up and left you with no warning  
It's not always going to be this grey.  
All things must pass,  
All things must pass away. _

_-George Harrison_

- - -

Hope was lost. Or that was how Hermione Granger felt as she watched her friends that she had loved and enemies that she had despised fall to the ground. Blood was _everywhere_ to be found and her innocence was _lost._

Hermione, just on the brink of sanity, wildly thought that it was her birthday that had done it.

Last night had been possibly the best night of her life, and today could possibly be the worst day of her life. Hermione found herself wishing she could have just stayed with Draco in that room forever, but it was not to be.

The battle raged all day. Her friends were dying around her. Harry and Voldemort in a spectacular duel with both fighting to kill. How naive Hermione had been! To sit and think that all she would have to was disarm and stun. She didn't realize she'd have to kill.

Hermione never wanted to kill. And yet, in the climax of the battle, she did.

Kill or be killed, as the Slytherins say.

Today, her date of birth, Hermione had taken seven lives. She felt with her having killed these four men and three women that the battle should have stopped, and the participants should have mourned the death of her enemies, and yet it went on. Went on with nobody stopping unless they had died or won. If the former, she knew not their fate after death. If the latter, they didn't have time for triumphant cheers, but engaged again in combat.

The definite hardest had to have been when she lost Neville.

Hermione and Neville found each other and used the other as a shield in back-to-back style, firing on the circle of attackers. It lasted for hours. As they turned, someone fired for Hermione but the turn put Neville in the way, and as the sky started to lose its sun, another friend was lost. She was sure that if it hadn't been for Neville, she would have been dead long ago.

Strangely enough, Hermione still knew where Draco was: the old brick wall, fighting with his own aunt, Bellatrix Lestrange. He at first seemed to be winning, but Hermione now watched as Bellatrix disarmed him and put her wand to Draco's throat.

Hermione wanted to scream but nothing would come; no air filled her lungs. She felt like she was in a vacuum or a dream where she ran and ran but never got anywhere. The dark clouds hovered above the blood-red sun. Hermione watched as a shock of green killed Draco Malfoy. As he fell, the sun sent vermillion shafts of light down. Then it set; the only thing left of the sun was the memory of when it had been there.

And then darkness.

- - -

_We can only appreciate the miracle of a sunrise if we have waited in the darkness._

_-Unknown_

- - -

Hermione Granger was twenty-five years old, but when she was nineteen, after a great battle that had stolen her innocence, she had thought Draco Malfoy right. She thought she could not just dream of him and remember his humor. She had many photographs of him that did no justice…and yet, as she reached twenty, she found the key to remembering his face: by looking at her beloved representation, the only representation that ever painted true the character of Draco Malfoy.

Because on that night that they had shared together, Draco Malfoy _had_ been wrong about one thing: you _can_ have a representation of something beautiful do the original justice...

Hermione smiled down at her sleeping son who looked _so_ like his father, except in his waking hours he laughed more and glowed with an innocence that was so precious to Hermione. He would have been to Draco, also, if he had lived.

In life, sunsets made Hermione both joyful and heartbroken. Sad, of course, because seeing something so artistic that you knew would soon fade from existence. And knowing precious few would ever see how beautiful _that_ sunset was.

But sunsets were joyful to her too…because you knew you had the sunrise the next day.

Hermione watched the sun rise with her son sleeping in her arms, running her fingers through his white-blond locks, looking out of the window.

Though Draco had been wrong on one count, he had also been right on another. The sunrise was unquestionably the greater of the two, as it was fresh, blameless, _childlike_, and untainted by the day. The way he had always wanted to be.

The sun of her son's years was rising, and it greatly outshined the sunset of his father's life.

The End


End file.
